City, School & Student Life

We’re going to look at what you should consider when you’re looking at a city, a school and student life. And we’re also going to talk about resources you can use to find this information out and red flags to keep an eye out for as well.

Slide 1: Lesson 2 – Choosing a School Course

Welcome to Lesson Two. So in this lesson, we’re going to look at what you should consider when you’re looking at a city, a school and student life. And we’re also going to talk about resources you can use to find this information out and red flags to keep an eye out for as well.

Slide 2: What to Look for in a City, University, and Student Life

So I want to go back to my example of Estonia, which I talked about in Lesson One.

Slide 3: Location Considerations – Keeping an open mind to the unknown

Before Beyond the States, I didn’t know a thing about Estonia, and I wouldn’t have been able to place it on a map. Then when I became aware of it, my thoughts on it were based around the only thing I really knew, which is that they were under Soviet rule until 1991. When I dug deeper, I learned that they’re one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world and they’re known as the next Silicon Valley. They’re actually an E-society and internet access is a defined human right.

Slide 3: Estonia

  • The next Silicon Valley
  • E-society
  • Free Wifi
  • Internet access is human right
  • Skype
  • NATO cyber defense center
  • High English proficiency

So this is really not what I envisioned. We talk a lot about how this country is a hidden gem for international students. They have reasonable tuition, affordable cost of living, it’s easy to explore other parts of the world, they have a fantastic airport, Helsinki is a ferry ride away, Russia is right across the way.

There are incredible opportunities to learn from them around technology through internship opportunities. And there have been some students who we’ve done best fit lisst for who’ve been a little skeptical when I suggested schools in Estonia. Then they looked into it, and they’re totally psyched. And we have a few who are studying there. That said, I know that none of them has said to themselves before that, “You know, I’d really like to study in Estonia.”

So instead of focusing on a certain country or city, narrow this by factors that you know about that are important to you. For instance, if you can’t handle the cold or dark winters, parts of Scandinavia would not be a good fit. If there’s a city you’ve been to, but you didn’t like, think about what it was specifically that you didn’t like about that city. If there’s a city you love, think about what you do like about it.

Slide 4: Specific Considerations

  • Weather
  • City Size
  • Constraints on working on student visa
  • How long to look for a job after graduating
  • Activities
  • English proficiency
  • Cost of living
  • Getting around town/around Europe/home
  • Safety
  • Tolerance

So let’s get into some of these specifics. Weather, for instance. What about weather might be a dealbreaker for you? Is it winter weather? Is it lots of rain? Is it days of sunshine? You also might want to look at the hours of daylight in the winter as this can affect mood for some. All of the students I’ve talked to in Scandinavia take vitamin D supplements, and sun lamps are around a lot, and they’re very common as well. But also, don’t assume anything about the weather. For instance, winters in Copenhagen aren’t as cold and snowy as most of Denmark. And Barcelona gets a ton of sunny days, but Bilbao is a rainy city. So those are things to look into.

City size is another one I want to talk about. Because this is one that we need to adjust our frame of reference for. When I think of a town versus a city with the US frame of reference, I think that towns might lack the infrastructures and amenities that a city has. I might assume that a town would lack walkability, or public transportation, or that there wouldn’t be an abundance of shopping and restaurants and such. But towns and smaller cities are much different in lots of Europe. In fact, eventhe compact size of the towns makes the offerings more accessible than in a large city. So instead of determining the size of the city, this is another one you might want to break down into what about a city size is important to you. Some of these are on this list. So like I said, like walkability, cost of living, getting around, the ease of getting around.

So I want to also talk about student visa. And if working during the school year is important to you, having an income, this is something you’re going to want to look at, what the constraints are in the country around working on a student visa. For instance, in Germany, you can work 120 full days a year or 240 half days. But in the Netherlands, you can either work full time in the summer, or 10 hours a week during the school year. So again, if that’s important to you, it’s definitely something to keep on your list of important considerations.

The other thing is different countries allow a different amount of time for looking for a job after you graduate. So if you’re planning on staying in Europe, this is also something to look at. So it’s usually six months that you have after you graduate to stay in the country and look for a job. There are a few countries that are less than that. But generally speaking, six months is the norm. However, there are a few countries that have these really cool offerings, like Germany allows 18 months. The Netherlands — this one’s cool — the Netherlands provides one year, but you can use that year anytime within three years of graduating. So let’s say you go to a university in the Netherlands, and then you come back to the States, and either you can’t get a job, or maybe you get your master’s degree here in the States, and decide that you want to pursue work in the Netherlands, you can do that up to three years after you graduate. So if you can’t find a job, you can go back there and use your year. After you finish grad school, you can go back there and use your year to look for a job. And then the Czech Republic gives you lifetime access to the job market, which is also pretty cool.

So activities, you want to look at which ones are real dealbreakers for you. For instance, there was one student I worked with who was going to Europe to play league soccer, so he needed to be close to a league that he could try out for it. And listen, I’m not a sports person, I don’t quite get it. But we had to look at location based on soccer. Maybe it’s that, you know, being on or near the water is really important to you. Maybe it’s workout facilities, maybe it’s something to do with the arts. Are there things that are crucial for you to have on a day-to-day basis?

English proficiency is another one that may or may not be important to you. You know, schools have buddy programs. And so, they’re going to teach you how to do things like go to the grocery store, those other things you might have difficulty with with a language barrier. But then that said, I’ve had a lot easier time getting around in countries with high English proficiency than those with a lower English proficiency.

Cost of living. You know, it’s helpful to know that in Stockholm, a soda costs $1.96, and a cup of coffee is $4. But in Budapest, a soda costs 92 cents and a coffee costs $1.27. That’s a huge difference. And those sorts of things really add up. There’s also walkability and public transportation, what’s the cost of these things? And what’s the ease of getting around? Remember though, when you’re looking at the cost of transportation, there are generally student discounts to look at as well.

And then, what’s the accessibility to other parts of Europe? There are places where trains are really accessible and you can just hop on a train like that, and next thing you know, you’re in Paris, or you’re in Brussels, or you’re in the Netherlands. And there are other places where it’s really more air travel. So where would you want to go? How easy is it to get around the continent and the country? And also, how easy is it to get home? And how important is that? I’m going to give you an example. I would love to visit schools in Cyprus, and I plan on visiting schools in Cyprus in the future. However, it is not easy to get to Cyprus. Thus, I have not been there yet. So, you know, those things are — and we’re talking about a one time trip for me. If my son were a student in Cyprus, I would have to worry about getting him home three times a year, two times a year, whatever it is. So that’s important.

So also safety, and what exactly you mean by safety. If you’re talking about, you know, pick pockets versus gun violence. Think about what you mean by safety. This is something that’s going to be pretty easy to assess. And then the tolerance of a city, whether it’s racial, religious, or gender. Look at those considerations and how important that is to you.

So how do we do this? We figure out what on this list is important to us. And then, how do we look into that?

Slide 5: Resources

  • Beyond the States
  • Nomadlist.com
  • Google Flights
  • rome2rio.com

So it’s not so hard. First thing is you’re a member, clearly, and you have our database, which has a lot of the city and country information. And I have to tell you for a minute about Nomad List. It is awesome. I don’t know if you have heard about digital nomads. I hadn’t heard of it until a few years ago. And it’s because we have friends who are digital nomads, who after their children graduated from high school, they both have jobs that allow them to work virtually. And so now, they spend — they’re traveling the world, essentially. They don’t have a home base anymore. And they go from, you know, country to country based on how long they can stay there on a tourist visa. And in the past couple of years, they have just been to some amazing places. Anyway, there are a lot of these digital nomads and they have sort of a community, if you will. And with that community there is the Nomad List. And sure, we’re looking at student life, not nomad life, but there are a lot of similar reference points. This site is a free site to check out, and they use crowd sourced data, not just from individuals, but using more than 500 data sources.

So you see these areas here, this is from the Nomad List page. In addition to these areas, the guide tells you about the weather, about air quality, about cost of living specifics. You know, the Stockholm soda and coffee. The numbers I got were from this. It also has a neighborhood guide. And they break neighborhoods down into categories like suits or rich people or hipsters or students or families or tourists. It’s something I use often when I’m traveling to different cities and choosing a location for an Airbnb. I like to look at their neighborhood guide and figure that out myself.

Google Flights is great for figuring out the ease of getting from home to different cities, and the cost. I like to plug in dates, particularly around Christmas, and see what the flight prices are like. Because that’s going to show you a nice range, Rome2rio is a great site if you want to see the ease of getting around the continent. If you plug in two different cities, it’s going to tell you different ways to get there, whether it’s train, or plane, or all these different options. A really cool site.

Slide 6: Action Step Location 

Go through the list and categorize how important each is to you.

  • What are the dealbreakers
  • List other considerations that would be dealbreakers
  • What would be nice, but not a dealbreaker

So let’s talk about the homework, the action step for this, for location. So there’s a list in the downloads. And I want you to go through the list and categorize how important each one is to you.

So what are the dealbreakers? These are the things that have to be there, no matter what. And then there’s the category of kind of what would be nice, but it’s not a dealbreaker. And then, other considerations that aren’t on the list that would absolutely be dealbreakers for you. So that’s the first action step here.

Slide 7: How to Assess Quality

  • Do rankings matter?
  • Which accreditations matter?

So now we’re going to talk about what to look for in a university. We just covered what to look for in a city. And now we’re going to talk about university-specific considerations. The first thing we want to look at is quality. And how do you assess quality? Because I would like to say that this is really individualized, or it should be. Now the first thing that is important across the board is accreditation. When I started Beyond the States, this was one of the struggles, is figuring out what accreditations were important, what accreditations were imperative, what were the sort of nice ones, and then what were the ones that, you know, if somebody says, you know, “Our university is accredited by John Doe,” that means nothing. You know? Grad schools don’t care if John Doe  accredits a school because he has no sort of accreditation authority. So hashing that all out was a challenge. But I can tell you that every program listed in our database is fully accredited.

Now Greece is a little bit different because Greece does not allow private schools to sort of function independently. And so, their programs have to be validated by other schools. And so, Greece is the only country that we list programs that are validated by another school. It’s this very kind of confusing thing. You would find it explained more in the database under Greece information.

So let’s talk about factors about the school. If you’re not looking at the rankings, then what should you look at? Now I could go on and on about why I don’t think global rankings are important when deciding a school. The brief reasons are that not all schools are eligible for it. The factors they use for global rankings are 100% based on research criteria. So universities of applied science, they don’t focus on research. So they’re not going to qualify to even be ranked. You know, the small business colleges, they’re not doing research either. They’re not going to be ranked. So not all schools are eligible for it. Research doesn’t speak to the educational experience for undergraduate students. And then, there are a ton of examples about how the ranking system is gamed.

So there are other accreditations that matter. So again, you know, we have all the schools and all the programs that are accredited at a country level. And then, there are these sort of extra accreditations that business schools can seek other. There are these international accreditations. There’s AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS. And this just sort of means that the school goes through more quality control in order to obtain these accreditations. They are factors that really do not speak more to the educational experience. So I do think that those matter. Those are noted in our database as well if a school has any of those accreditations.

Slide 8: Personalized Quality Indicators

  • Seminars/Lectures
  • Accessibility of Professors
  • Faculty Background
  • Class size
  • Teaching Philosophy

But then there are these personalized quality indicators. So it’s really important to think about what a good educational experience means to you. You know, things like are there seminars in addition to lectures? Are professors leading the seminars? How large are the seminars or lectures? How accessible are the professors? You know, there are some countries where there’s a flat hierarchy. And so, the professors are very accessible outside of class. There are others where it’s more formal and sort of stratified, and they won’t be as accessible outside of class.

You know, maybe faculty background is important to you. I spoke with an administrator with a forestry program in Prague who said they had a student from Japan who specifically sought out the program due to the research she knew of from one of their professors. So what’s important to you? The teaching philosophy maybe. Some schools have problem-based learning, which is pretty cool. Others focus more on projects. There are a number of different teaching philosophies, which speak to you? So those are ways.

Slide 9: Outcomes

  • Employment rate after graduation
  • Recruitment opportunities
  • Who do they partner with
  • Internships

Okay. So let’s go to outcomes. So there’s employment or, you know, what sort of does the university do to help you with employment after graduation? So you can look at things like the employment rate after graduation for the program specifically. And the school, if you want to. The program is more important. Who cares if somebody from a chemistry program has high employability, if you as an international relations student does not? So definitely look at that at the program level.

So also, recruitment opportunities. Do they offer an internship? Do they require an internship? Or are there recruitment fairs? Do people come in and talk about different companies? Who are the companies that they partner with? A lot of schools are going to say this. And when they partner, it’s not only for internships. Sometimes for projects and events and lectures as well, as well as networking opportunities.

Also some schools, if you’re talking about going to graduate school after or you’re thinking about going to graduate school after you graduate, some schools do have sort of this informal direct admission to their graduate school after you graduate as well.

Slide 10: International Student Special Considerations

  • Percentage of international students
  • Assistance with housing
  • Number of English-taught bachelor’s
  • International student resources
  • Admission processes

And then there are specific considerations to the international student experience. And again, this is about thinking about which of these are important to you. Perhaps it’s the percent of international students. You know, if the percent of international students is really low, then you can — it’s harder sometimes to find a community of other students who are having this real life changing experience, living outside of their home country.

The thing to look at with the number of English-taught bachelor’s, the reason this one is important is that this speaks to sort of the English proficiency of the school. If there are a lot of English taught bachelor’s, then it’s more likely that they’re going to have sort of the systems and the infrastructures in place for their English-speaking students. So if there’s a small number, look at what the ratio is to the other number of programs. You know, if there is only one English-taught bachelor’s program, but there are only two bachelor’s programs in all, then that sits a little bit better than one English-taught bachelor out of 20 bachelor’s programs in all.

Assistance with housing is another one. Some schools are great with this. Other schools say, “Here’s a list.” Other schools say, “Have at it yourself.” So if that’s important to you to have that assistance, definitely look at that as well.

And then there are other resources for international students. Sometimes there’s language classes. Sometimes there are certain orientations set up just for international students. At Toulouse Business School, they have an administrator who’s there just to help with international students and the struggles and obstacles they might experience individually.

And then we have admissions processes. I can tell you that some countries, this is more difficult than others. Finland, for instance, their universities of applied science require entrance exams. This used to be a lot harder, you’d have to travel to take the entrance exam. For some schools, you still have to do that. But now other schools are allowing you to substitute SAT scores for the entrance exam. I can tell you that Italy, public universities in Italy, have one of the most confusing admissions processes there is. So you know, that’s one thing to consider, as you’re looking at universities.

Slide 11: Red Flags

  • Unclear if program is in English
  • Horrible website
  • Lack of response
  • Hard to get additional information
  • Huge program size
  • Funding

So red flags to look at. So one thing is if it’s unclear if the program is in English, that’s sort of a red flag. I mean, look into it more. But this sort of goes along with horrible website. If this is your experience as a consumer already, before you’re even a student, it’s sort of a red flag for what you might experience once you get there as well. So maybe the school just doesn’t have a big budget for a website. So the next thing is lack of response. So if you email them and say, “Hey, is your chemistry program, is that taught entirely in English?” And you either don’t get a response or you get an unclear response, that’s another red flag that goes along with when it’s hard to get additional information.

There was this program that somebody alerted us to, they said, “Oh, you know, I saw information about this school in Spain. It was like on a beach, it was beautiful. And I don’t see them in your database.” So we looked at the program, and we couldn’t figure out, they didn’t have accreditation listed. And so, we emailed them, and we said, “Hey! Who is your program accredited by?” And so, it took — gosh, well over three weeks for them to get back to us. And they didn’t say, “Oh, you know, we’re accredited by the country of Spain, the Ministry of Education, or whatever.” They said, “Here’s a link,” and the link was basically a link just saying that they were accredited by like, you know, some bogus accreditation site. So not only was it hard for us to get a response, but when we did, it was hard to get that information that we were asking for.

Huge program size. I would consider that more on a country level. There are some countries – and again, I love Italy, I love Spain, but they’re known, their public universities have really, really, really big lectures, sort of overcrowded. It’s just something to consider. And again, that sort of goes along with funding as well.

Slide 12: Resources

  • AACSB/AMBA/EQUIS
  • Assess school and program level
  • Current students
  • Facebook
  • BTS members
  • Experience Day or online version
  • Me

So let’s see here. Resources, that’s what I wanted to talk about. We talked about the international accreditations for the business schools. That’s AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS. You can look at their sites and see what those accreditations mean. Again, you’re going to want to look at the school level, and also resources and stats for the program level.

Current students, that’s always a great way to get information, whether it’s from Facebook. Sometimes, schools have program websites set up where you can ask their students questions. I know visits are great, but I also know that they’re not always doable. If you do go and you have a lot of flexibility, you should see if the school has an open day or an experience day. They’re not the regular tours like here, but it’s more of an organized event for potential students. If you’re going and you can’t do that, check with the international student office or international recruitment office about tours, or the head of the department you’re interested in about setting up a meeting. And like I said, some schools have these virtual experience days, and many have it set up where you can Skype with a student. Even if they don’t have this setup, you can always ask.

Another thing I like to look at are the videos that schools have. And YouTube is a great place to see more about a school and a city as well.

Slide 13: YouTube

So for instance, I searched YouTube for Kozminski University, and we have a whole host of different videos that we can see. Some are from Kozminski, and some are from other sources. And again, it has stuff about student life, it has stuff about academic life, a whole range. The thing to note though, sometimes students who are doing a semester abroad make these videos, and the semester abroad experience is much different than the experience you will have as a full degree-seeking student. So keep that in mind as you read things online, as you look at videos and such around that.

Slide 14: Action Step

So the action step — is to look at — and again, there’s a downloadable about this — which of the quality indicators, which of the outcome measures, which of the resources and supports are the most important to you? So use a worksheet to make your list of the dealbreakers and use the resource list to determine how you’ll find this information.

Slide 15: Student Life

  • Housing
  • Students Associations (in English)
  • What activities do you want to continue?
  • ESN for adjustment and information
  • What is student population of the city/town?

Okay, so let’s talk about student life. As we touched on before, it’s much more part of the city than it is here in the US. You know, in the US, the student life is more about the specific school. There, it’s about the city. So you’re going to want to look at housing, for instance. What’s the availability like? I can tell you that there are places like Sweden, especially Stockholm, where housing is virtually impossible, and other places where it is easy as can be. And then there are some places where housing is really hard, but they guarantee it for international students. So those are considerations.

Student Associations, these are basically like clubs. And they might be around activities, they might be around interest levels, or backgrounds. Not only what student associations do they have, but are they in English? And that’s another thing when we talked about the percent of international students and when we talked about the number of English-speaking programs, that’s kind of where this comes into play as well.

So what activities do you want to continue? And do they have that? Does the school have an active ESN? That’s the Erasmus Student Network. And they’re there to help all international students. They’re specifically there for, you know, the semester abroad, but they have programs for adjustment and for information for all international students. So you might want to see how big their ESN program is there.

And then, what’s the student population of the city and town? Because if there’s a higher percentage of students, then there’s more likely to be the student amenities and activities that students are interested in.

Slide 16: What are your absolute must have activities?

Okay, so what are your must have activities? And which of these activities could you not start on your own? Let’s say, oh, you love cooking, but they don’t have a cooking club. One of the great things is these are things that you can start on your own. Cooking is a silly example. But I have talked to a number of students who have started sort of passion projects and activities on their own with the international student community.

Slide 17:

So let me go back to that slide there. That is the end of Lesson Two. And what we’re going to do in Lesson Three is we’re going to take those assignments and we’re going to walk through the process of doing a best fit list so that you’ll know how to do this for yourself.

So take care of the assignments, and then we’ll move on to Lesson Three.